


The Princeling and the Ancient One

by Muze



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Right after the battle with Hybern during ACOWAR, Smut, Varian is so precious, because these babies get too little attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 07:57:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14744936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muze/pseuds/Muze
Summary: He beckoned her, dark hand reaching. Just like it had reached for her this afternoon when she had let him go.Varian had made it past all of Hyberns creatures, guards, the entire warfield only to reach her. He was Tarquin’s commander, yet he had slipped away for her. ‘I think I might have learned with you, though. Perhaps that was a last gift, too.’It had been the closest she had ever come to confessing her love for him.Amren and Varian go home the night after the battle, but they're not ready to sleep just yet.





	The Princeling and the Ancient One

The first time hadn’t been her choice. She’d spent millennia contained within a mortal form.

Contained. And didn’t everyone know it who ever looked her in the eye.

They’d all been afraid. Rightfully so, even her friends. The tallest Illyrian brute might have dared teasing her with nicknames like “tiny ancient one” but no one had ever dared ruffle her feathers. Little did they know she had indeed been a creature with fiery feathers.

Every sound still seemed muted after the incredible noise of the battlefield. Amren shook her head once she closed her apartment’s door behind her.

The last time she’d stood in that hallway she’d been indestructible. An ancient beast contained within a tiny body. Now she was just that. Possibly the tiniest fully grown fae alive.  
  
Everything inside of her felt off. There was a permanently missing piece of her that would forever ache like a phantom limb. Nevermore would she feel the fire pulsing under her skin, begging to break free. She’d been willing to give up her life, but now she had given up her being instead.

Her feet were heavy as she lifted them to take off her shoes. The Illyrians often waxed poetic about hearing the song of the wind. How Cassian had howled at being forced to stay on the ground for months. She’d never spent a minute on the ground except for sleeping before she became this. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like before today but she had never forgotten the urge to taste the sky. And now, with the fresh memories in her mind, she doubted she would ever stop longing for it.

So long since she had unleashed her rage upon the world and let her instincts take over. It felt good to just take off and turn into a harbinger of death and destruction again. Never again.

Within a second she lost her balance, her mortal body too tired to stand on one leg for the time it took her to loosen her shoelaces. But there were two hands already holding her by the hip and the arm preventing her from falling. She continued untying them but once she had removed her last shoe she allowed her eyes to slip shut. Soft hot lips seared the skin of her neck.

An eternity with all of her friends. An eternity which she now knew she would never lose, for she wasn’t the monster that escaped that prison centuries ago. An eternity to fill in to her liking with a new purpose, love, anything. A truly frightening prospect. Maybe those girls weren’t so odd for having an existential crisis.

‘Shall we take a shower?’  
She didn’t know why he was here. Surely, after this war his cousin needed him to discuss court matters with. The Summer Court had encountered a substantial amount of losses. She never quite understood him. He’d been frightened and infatuated from the second she walked into the Summer Court. And didn’t she know it. At first it had amused her to no end to tease the boy prince. She’d kept him on edge for the longest of time, never giving him any reason to feel comfortable around her. But though he was young, his fancy wasn’t fickle.  
He’d kept on writing her and sending her gifts.

‘A bath.’ She could barely stay on her legs and she wasn’t about to make that even more obvious. ‘I shall run it.’ He left her and made for the bathroom. She felt the rumble in her stomach, but she doubted there was anything in her fridge she could stomach… As a fae. Her own apartment had become unaccommodating for her. Taking off the dirtied clothes from the battlefield she walked into her bedroom. The mirror on the ceiling and the big mirror framed with diamonds on the wall were scary. Dared she look?

Better get it over with now. That way she would not have to process it in the bathroom with Varian present.

This time it had been her choice to become fae once more. She could’ve become an Illyrian man, strong and feared and able to fly. She could’ve turned into a bird. Could’ve become a fae, more in touch with fire. But in the end, she had chosen this life. Her old body. Tiny it might be, but it was hers. With curves on the places she wanted, and a face that would be recognized by her friends. The only thing that had changed were her eyes. No silver mist moving contained within her ocular orbs. That had been the very thing that warned others of her power, the thing that had frightened everyone she ever met in this form.

‘It’s ready.’  
She pulled a corner of her mouth up in an amused smile. ‘Sweet.’  
The water was so hot every reflective surface in her bathroom had misted over. Perfect. Their mutual love of heat was perfect in moments like these. Never did they quarrel when showering together and never did one find the bedroom or blankets too hot or too cold. Varian was eager to jump in, his body had indeed been pushed to the limit today. She had merely been freed from hers and then put back in it.  
No, she was not tired from the fight. It was a whole other kind of tired.

He beckoned her, dark hand reaching. Just like it had reached for her this afternoon when she had let him go.

Varian had made it past all of Hyberns creatures, guards, the entire warfield only to reach her. He was Tarquin’s commander, yet he had slipped away for her. 

_'Don't.'_ She remembered him begging. She would never get that broken plea out of her head.  
_'Don't do it.'_

  
She took his hand as she stepped in to the giant tub, slowly easing her body against his. His arms snuck around her, holding her so tightly she knew him to be holding in sobs. Turning High Fae had emptied her. So many emotions running through her and fighting against each other it had left her drained but Varian- he never seemed to run short of feelings to express. She gently ran her nails across his leg, something she knew always calmed him.

She hadn’t thought she would return. But now here she was. They were bound to have some heavy talks.

‘I think I might have learned with you, though. Perhaps that was a last gift, too.’

It had been the closest she had ever come to confessing her love for him. And there she had been, announcing it just as she was supposedly leaving this world forever. Just when he was begging for her to stay. Him never having said it as well. True, he had laden her with gifts and affection but he remained a proud prince, refusing to bare his heart when she wouldn’t either.

  
‘So I reached out a hand. To see if she might want to come back.’  
Rhysand had said it out loud, and though Varian had been busy with helping her out of the cauldron, she doubted he hadn’t heard. She doubted he didn’t know why.

The water started shaking softly, even before she registered the tremble in his hands.

‘Varian.’ Not boy. Not tonight.  
‘You- you-’

  
‘I’m here. I stay.’  
His wet hand trailed up to cover her right breast, feeling her heartbeat.  
‘But you didn’t intend to.’

‘I intended to save all of you. I’d had my time to experience everything.’  
Her head rested against his heaving chest but she kept her eyes fixed on the rim of the bathtub. She couldn’t face him.

‘In those minutes I-I-‘  
It was coming. She didn’t know if she was prepared for it. But it was coming. And it was coming now.

‘It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. And when you disappeared on that horizon-‘  
She finally dared to look him in the eye. She had to.  
‘I felt everything inside me die and hurt. More than the spears that had pierced my skin today. More than the slashes the swords carved into my skin or the magic that weakened me.’  
‘I never- never let my thoughts go down that road because of what you were but…When I discovered you were alive and- and I decided I- we- that… I don’t want either of us to die without having come clean about it... I love you.’

She waited for what was to follow. But he remained silent, only tears slipping from his crystal blue eyes. She had been forced in a High Fae body, and although Feyre still had a human heart, Amren still had far more of her former creature lurking beneath her skin… Or at least she had.

Because when her eyes had connected with Varian after she was done vomiting the murky water of the cauldron, she had felt that pull of the mating bond while she never had before. It had been so strong it had made her double over again. And ever since, she had felt Varian’s turmoil more than she had seen it. Love, it had seemed so strange at first. How it had consumed people and made them do silly things.

But now, here she was for all of eternity, with someone who was waiting for her to love him back. So many new things had already forced their presence upon her; hunger, and the thing that followed after having eaten, the need to sleep when before it had been a choice but this- this was something she could choose.

‘We won’t die anytime soon.’ She raised her hand to stroke his hair. He shut his eyes, a shuddering breath leaving his prettily shaped lips. ‘I love you too, princeling.’ It had slipped past her lips before he could reopen his eyes. She felt it again. As strong as the humming invisible power of the cauldron had been.

Their eyes didn’t disconnect before their lips met. Water was splashing everywhere as they repositioned. Arms and legs slipping and sliding over the smooth surface of the tub and around each other’s bodies. He was holding her so tightly it hurt but she was sure the vicious grip of her legs wasn’t comfortable for his abdomen either.

Her nails slid across the skin of his back without mercy. He hissed but another part of him was clearly enjoying this.  
‘You can stay mine for the time being.’

He moaned as he buried his head in the crevice of her neck and shoulder.  
‘Would you like that, boy?’

He was still grasping at her, his feeble mumbling nothing comprehensible.  
She felt her confidence slowly regrowing. This she knew. This dance between them.  
‘To be tied to me in thought and mind?’

‘Amren’, he wailed brokenly.  
‘Pity I don’t have any food around here.’

At that he buried himself inside of her, his hips hammering mercilessly against hers. She would need him as well though.

She doubted she’d adapt to being a High Fae and everything it entailed easily. She had thousands and thousands of years of old habits to overcome. But that she couldn’t admit.

They slid of the sitting ledge of the tub and went to the middle of the deep pool. She closed her eyes and could almost imagine herself bathing in the sea, the waves of Varian’s trust just like the wild waves of the current. The light in the room, the warmth and the solid muscle holding her never making her feel like when she was inside the cauldron the way Nesta confessed baths made her feel.

And then, the rhythm changed and she felt how it was building towards something, heard the way Varian’s moans shifted to something more guttural. And then. She let out a high pitched breath.

And just as she was enjoying the release, a thought slipped into her mind.

‘We’ll have to make sure I don’t get pregnant from now on.’ So foreign. The mere idea was so strange.  
‘Mhm, as you wish’, Varian mumbled. Obviously not registering the full meaning of it. He kissed her one more time before making the water run. He made the water evaporate from their skins immediately and carried her towards the bedchamber.

So much carrying today.  
‘You know, I have two fully functioning legs.’  
‘I know, but we don’t have all night to reach the bed, love.’  
‘I’m going to kill you in your sleep.’  
‘Lovely.’

He was asleep before she could speak one more threat.


End file.
